Beer-related travel, at home and abroad, exploring and indulging my passion for beer.

Saturday, 8 June 2013

One Way to Make a Living or Desparate Times Call For Desparate Measures

There was a story in our local paper (Kent & Sussex
Courier) this week about the closure of yet another pub. Sad, but hardly
headline news you might say, but for the last six years, the Harp Inn at East
Peckham hasn’t really been a pub in the true sense of the word. Instead it has
functioned as a licensed “sexual entertainment venue” (strip
club to you and I). Until now that is, because on 30th May,
Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council refused to grant the Harp a new
licence, following objections from 43 local residents.

Living reasonably local to East Peckham, I was obviously aware
of this establishment, although I must admit I didn’t realise it was still
operating in this fashion. Four years ago I remember hearing lurid tales of
seedy goings on at the Harp from a couple of drinkers my friend and I were
chatting to in a Tonbridge pub, but put this down to the beer-fuelled ramblings of a couple of "likely lads"
and the tendency of people to embellish a story for effect. It didn’t strike me
as the place for a quiet pint of decent ale, so I filed the place away right at the
back of my memory and forgot about it until I saw yesterday’s paper.

Back in the nineties, the Harp had a reputation as a
half-decent boozer; in fact at one time it majored quite heavily on serving a
good selection of cask beers. For example, it was one of the few places locally
to stock Hog’s Back beers at a time when they just weren't available in this part of the South East. What I think did for the pub, was the unfortunate death
of the then landlord, coupled with its location right on the edge of East
Peckham, in fact so far on the edge that it is necessary, and a lot safer, to drive there.
According to the local paper, “Struggling with falling trade in 2007, Lee
Swainsbury, landlord of the Harp Inn, decided to liven things up by bringing in
some raunchy entertainment” This was after he had tried staging live music
events and taking on a chef in a bid to attract custom.

The strippers obviously did the trick, but owing to the
nature of the “entertainment” the windows were boarded up and the once quite
attractive pub building had become a bit of an eyesore. Mr Swainsbury still has
21 years lease remaining on the building, but was quoted as saying he has no
plans for the future of the Harp Inn. Manager, Graham Hammond was rather more outspoken
over the closure though, stating that "The locals have no right to claim they lived
in a traditional English village."

He may have a point, as East Peckham is no
picture-postcard, snapshot of Old England, although I perhaps wouldn’t go quite
so far as refer to it as a “s***hole” as Mr Hammond did in print. When I first
moved to this part of West Kent, nearly 30 years ago, the village boasted five pubs. Now, with the closure of the Harp, the number
has dropped to just two, with one establishment trading as an Indian
restaurant, and the other, an attractive old building at the opposite end of
the village from the Harp, empty and boarded up. Given this environment it is
perhaps not surprising that the landlord of the Harp had to resort to what is
euphemistically referred to as “adult entertainment “in order to pull in the
punters.

Final word from Mr Hammond, who said, “The place cannot
operate as anything other than it is. The village is simply going to end up
with another derelict building or an even more undesirable pub.”I for one hope he is wrong and that some entrepreneur
takes on the Harp and re-opens it as a traditional pub, but being realistic,
for a moment and given the depressed state of the pub trade, I’m afraid I can’t
really see that happening anytime soon.

Footnote: No discussion about an establishment of this
nature could be complete without thought for the ladies that used to
work/perform at the Harp. It is well known that workers in the “sex industry”
are often vulnerable young women who find themselves open to exploitation for a variety of reasons. I do
know from my brief encounter with the two local drinkers, four years ago, that
most of the girls who worked there were East European. I am not suggesting for
one minute, that they were exploited by the Harp’s management, but who really
knows what brought them to these shores in the first place, and what exactly
led them to have ended up working in the so-called “adult entertainment
“business.

3 comments:

Eddie
said...

I've been many times and, unusually, most of the women are not of Eastern European descent but indigenous English girls. Adult women working of their own volition. In truth I'd be amazed if you haven't been here yourself to have a look at the strippers. That 'two of my mates have told me but I've never been myself' is the oldest one in the book.

It might well be the "oldest one in the book", Eddie, but it happens to be true. Also the two people who told me about the place weren't mates, but a couple of not very interesting people my friend knew, and who we got lumbered with in the pub one Saturday lunchtime.If I had been to the Harp then I would have said, as I'm not given to lying, and anyway it wouldn't have been something I was ashamed of, or wished to hide.

The point of my article was firstly to highlight the pub's closure, but also to illustrate the lengths some licensees are having to go to in order to make their businesses viable. There was also the "nimbyism" of the villagers who would rather see the place boarded up and derelict rather than providing entertainment that was obviously popular and well received by the pub's clientele.

Like most people of a certain age I've been round the block a few times and personally speaking I haven't got a problem with women getting their kit off, for the entertainment of others, providing it's truly what they want to be doing for a living. However, it's really not something I look for when choosing a place to drink in and as the Harp is closed now anyway, this whole discussion is somewhat academic.

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About Me

Sixty years old (just) and married with one twenty-something son, who shows no sign of wanting to
leave home. My interests are many and varied, and whilst beer (and the
enjoyment of it) obviously features high on the list I also enjoy travelling
(particularly when it involves searching out new beers to try), cycling and
walks in the countryside. I dabble a bit in gardening, which at the moment
primarily involves re-landscaping my garden. My other main interests though are
music, especially 70's rock music, and history. I have been a member of CAMRA
since the mid 1970's and have edited a number of local branch magazines. I have
also had published two, now sadly out of date, guides to Kent
pubs. For six years my wife and I also ran our own successful real-ale
off-licence, which as well as selling cask ale to take away by the pint,
offered one of the best selections of bottled beers in the south east. Prior to
taking on the shop, I was an accomplished home-brewer producing a wide range of
full-mash beers; something I intend to get back into in the not too distant
future.